So I finally got around to painting up several vehicles that I've had sitting on the shelf that were in a very basic level of completion. I had 5 drop pods that had the tin bitz level of the base coat done, so basically needed to be completely painted anyway :P I also had a rhino that was almost finished, so I finished that off too.

So that makes it twelve painted drop pods now. And one misc rhino :) So I've now got two companies worth of transports. Still quite a few to go though. I think I have enough marines painted now to complete all four of my battle companies though. I might be a few short, so I'll get another twenty marines painted next I think and make sure I have

OK, so I've just finished another batch of marines, bringing me to 560 marines painted. With 1000 marines in the companies, the 45 from command squads and then however many other characters such as chaplains, captains, honour guard and librarians, I figure the total marine count will sit at around 1100 in the end. I checked a post I made on a forum I'm part of and realised that I've painted about 340 marines since November last year. Not a terrible effort if I do say so myself.

You'll notice from the picture below that the latest editions still need a tiny bit of work (namely squad markings and the sergeant's banner). You might also notice that I've started giving the sergeants black helmets to go with the new background that was written in the Blood and Fire nnovella by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. I will be repainting all the sergeant helmets I've done so far, but have chosen not to repaint the skin tone of the marines I've already painted.

So, I'm almost done with another twenty marines. However, I've run into a minor issue that Mr Dembski-Bowden has caused me some consternation with the novella Blood and Fire.

It's nothing really that serious. It just means repainting some models. The sergeants have black helmets apparently. Also, the lions themselves come from a savannas of African type of planet / theme for their origin. This means I need to alter the background and names I've developed so far a little. The other issue is the skin tone of the marines. They are portrayed as African in appearance in the novella. I've painted mine as Caucasians so far. Not something I probably need to fix actually as I could simply just go for a "mixed race" appearance. Or since I'm not following the Lion's colour scheme super strictly anyway, just not worry about it.

I really need to get my painting mojo back though, I want to power through another 1-200 m

Rumours about a new Space Marine codex are currently flying around the interwebs. The main two items are that they are getting a "bigger" dreadnought and some kind of obliterator marine that is bigger than a terminator. The dreadnought I could probably live with, but I'm not sure if I like the concept of the heavy weapon harness marines.

I mean, I know GW need to make sales and given that every man and his dog owns a marine army, they need something new to get people to buy stuff. But I would have liked to see something more in line with the current established fluff (new vehicles based on STC etc). If I'm being honest with myself though, I will more than likely be buying the new minis anyway.

There is another new rumour that they will be getting a bunch of new weapons like grav weapons. This may make me rather upset lol. I already have all the heavy and special weapons I need!

Having said all that, I'm eagerly awaiting the new codex to see what they do with it.

So I've had about seventy or eighty odd marines undercoated waiting to get painted for some time now, but I just can't motivate myself to actually make a start on them. I struggled to get the thunderhawk finished and it didn't give me the usual sense of accomplishment finishing a miniature does. Maybe because I don't think I did it justice.

I've also been toying around with the new Eldar minis since I have a large Eldar army as it stands and love all the new minis (Wraithknight, Cri

Anyway, I guess I'll make a start on some more marines now. They're not going to paint themselves.